


'i love you' never felt like any blessing

by 1001cranes



Category: X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-01
Updated: 2011-08-01
Packaged: 2017-10-22 02:14:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/232592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1001cranes/pseuds/1001cranes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kink meme fill - Team Erik thinks that he's working overtime to find more mutants to build up their strength, but that's more of a secondary concern for him. He's trying to find someone with the ability to heal, say, spines.</p>
            </blockquote>





	'i love you' never felt like any blessing

Charles smells the brimstone the exact moment he senses a presence in the hallway. Azazel's more erratic movements can be difficult to track, but when he is close, he is obvious.

Charles reaches for Alex's mind, a pin-pressure of _danger now_ , but Raven is the one who walks into the room. Raven, whom Charles would not hurt without dire circumstances requiring it, and perhaps not even then. He knows she has changed in Erik's company, but she wouldn't come here to make trouble.

 _never mind_ , he sends back, as gently as he can. Two floors away Alex has jumped to his feet, ready to sound the alarm if needed. _forgive your Professor his paranoia_ , and he sends a peaceful wave across Alex's brain, gentle, and soothing, so Alex will not even think to ask about it later.

"Charles," Raven says – Raven, because Charles can never think of her as Mystique, not really, and he knows this is as big of a failing as his inability to accept her true form ever was.

But he calls her Mystique when he greets her, and they kiss one another, briefly, while Charles' mind races through what could have brought her here. It's so very rarely the X-Men and the Brotherhood see eye-to-eye, and rarer still they agree to work together.

Then another noseful of brimstone, the sudden reappearance of Azazel and two more mutants alongside him. Charles recognizes Emma Frost almost immediately - he has no knowledge of her thoughts, of course, but she's like a fragment of shattered mirror in his brain; disturbing, distracting, and very hard to ignore. The other is... new. Gentler. They walk through the door together. Emma in another one of her outspoken white leather get-ups, and a boy of no more than sixteen, with a golden tan that spoke of days spent outdoors, blonde hair, and a thoroughly broken spirit. He meets Charles eyes, briefly, before stopping beside Raven.

“This is Joshua,” Raven says, putting one hand on the boy's shoulder. “Josh. He needs –” She pauses, delicately, so like the Raven of old his heart aches. “We couldn’t help him.”

“And so we thought of you," Emma says, in as a pleasant a tone he's ever heard.

It is one thing that has kept Erik in Charles' heart for so long - he has no time for children, no desire to exploit them, no matter how talented. He has no compunctions about scooping them up from Charles once they are trained, but that is another matter.

“Emma found him,” Raven explains. “His friend was attacked at the anti-mutant rally in Chicago – ”

“The stress made him manifest,” Emma continues, quietly but not softly. _And it wasn’t pretty_.

His friends turned on him. No one has to say it, or think it, for that matter. Charles isn’t surprised anymore. Hasn't really been surprised since that day on the beach, when his blinders were ripped from him.

“I am so sorry for what happened with your friends,” he says, and Joshua looks up again, briefly. "I won't pry, but if you'd like to tell me what happened --" _we can help you_ , he projects, and the boy's eyes barely move. Already used to having Emma in his head, of course.

"I'm afraid he doesn't talk very much, Charles."

There is a moment where Charles does not move. Does not think. Doesn't look up to verify with his eyes what he cannot verify with his telepathy. That was Erik's voice, yes, still silken after all these years. Still so confidant.

The worst part of the helmet is how completely it blocks someone from Charles’ telepathy – it’s not the cold that surrounds Emma’s mind, so pointed its nearly offensive, or the reflective prism of someone trained to deflect telepaths – it’s worse, it’s the _worst_ , the blank space where Erik should be. Like a blind spot. Like a limb without the phantom sensation to comfort you, and Charles has enough experience in that area. Erik could have been here from the very beginning, and Charles would never know.

“Erik.”

It _is_ him, of course. Charles allows himself a moment to look, to drink in the sight of Erik once again in the Mansion. He memorizes it, savors it, before forcing his mind along far more unpleasant pathways. Azazel is not with them, nor Riptide, nor any of the many other souls Erik has picked up in the years since they've parted. Charles scans the rest of the house, the grounds, out of habit. Erik rarely attacks other mutants, and certainly not children, but Charles doesn't trust some of Erik's associates. And he doesn't trust some of his children to not go looking for trouble on their own.

"My old friend," Erik says, and drops to his heels besides the wheelchair, one hand resting on Charles', and they grasp one another eagerly. They are so frequently on opposite sides, so frequently fighting one another, but it is less easy to deny what remains between them when they meet on neutral terms. "It has been a while."

"It has," Charles says around the lump in his throat. "It has indeed." He allows himself this brief moment, before opening his mouth to ask what could possibly have brought the Brotherhood to darken his doorstop, but Erik does something unexpected.

Impossibly, improbably, completely unexpected.

Erik takes off his helmet.

It’s been years since Charles was inside Erik’s head. Since that day on the beach, when everything fell to irreparable pieces. And it's not that Charles hasn't been in other minds, hasn't pulled up memories, or helped mutants to control their powers. It isn't that Erik was Charles' only friend, only confidante, but there was - well, there was simply never anyone in Charles' life quite like Erik. Never anyone Charles could meld with quite so easily, could simple _be_. Who knew Charles as well as Charles knew them.

Oh, there are areas in his memory Erik is protecting - memories with shiny surfaces that might as well scream to not be touched. There are darker areas, the places Erik has always dwelled, and Charles avoids those as well. He has no place anywhere Erik does not invite him, and the simple rush of affection that Erik projects is already blisteringly hot, entirely too sensational after so long, and Charles would not trade it for anything short of the world. He knows the tears in the corners of his eyes are mirrored by Erik's.

Behind him, Raven beams like the girl she once was, and Charles is forced to take a minute to collect himself.

“I wish you had not kept this from me," Erik says after a moment, wrapping his hand around the spokes of the chair, and he projects a deep, true regret.

“You would never have left.” They both know it to be true. “I once told you I would not make you stay even if I could.” Erik would have accepted Charles' injury in much the same way he had accepted the fracturing of their friendship - as a penance for what he had done. Chaining Erik to his side would have done neither of them any good. The eventual schism would have affected far more people, and been far more bitter. More destructive.

"Still." Erik smiles, lopsided, only a flash of teeth. _my friend my friend my friend I am so so sorry_

“Erik,” Charles says warmly. What transpired on the beach so long ago has been more than forgiven. "You know--"

 _so sorry_

But this regret is fresh. New. Uncertain, even. It’s only out of the corner of his eye that Charles notices Joshua slipping the helmet on, as Raven steps out of the room.

“Erik?”

 _so very sorry my friend_

The rest is all pain.

| |

It's a while before Charles can get past it, can have a solid conscious thought, and he goes for Joshua's mind only to slide off, blocked, of course blocked. He tries Emma next, but she is too strong, and she has taught Erik too well; there is no recourse for him here, not when he can barely concentrate. He's trying to call for help, but he's - the pain scrambles his signal, for lack of a better metaphor, and he can't be sure he's getting through to anyone at all, not in a coherent way.

He doesn't - what's _happening_ , why would Erik - and it dawns on him his feet are twitching – his feet are _twitching_ , and suddenly, suddenly, he understands.

“Erik,” he gasps. “No –”

“What’s the saying?” Erik asks, with a terrible grimace that is not quite a smile. “Better to beg forgiveness than ask permission?”

Charles blacks out before he can think of a reasonable counterargument.

| |

He wakes in his own bed. His body aching, his mind a jumble. Charles tries to dredge up anger, self-righteousness - but he fails. He tries to feel anything, but he - he can't quite.

Erik sits in the armchair beside him. Helmet back on his head. "Emma is keeping your students out," he says idly. "You should better prepare them for telepaths, Charles, really. You and Emma are hardly the only two around." Erik tilts his head. "Though your little redhead is... quite fierce."

"Jean can be unpredictably powerful," Charles says, and looks down at his legs, his feet. They look no different, but then, Charles never allowed his muscles to atrophy. Not when it could be prevented. "She's caught me off guard a time or two. Ms. Frost should be careful."

He wills his toe to move.

It twitches, feebly. Barely a movement, barely believable, had Charles not, in moments of unbelievable melancholy, attempted to do the very same thing with no result.

"My god," he whispers.

"Quite a talent, Elixir has," Erik says, and Charles thinks, oh, Joshua, the poor child. He wonders what Emma did to his head, what story Erik spun - maybe he even told the real one, with enough pathos to make anyone want to help. Old friends, a betrayal, always searching for a chance to make things right.

"You'll be weak, at first," Erik continues, as calm as ever. "But I doubt you will allow yourself to remain that way for long." He stands, imperious, and for a moment - a moment, mind, a decidedly foolish moment - Charles' heart aches for the Erik he once knew. The one still buried in there somewhere. The one who occasionally stills Magneto's hand.

"I'm not foolish enough to think you will thank me for this," he says, moving towards the door. Not looking back. "But you will forgive, old friend. You will forgive me this."

It’s true, is the worst of it. Charles would never have let Erik do this, never asked for it, never looked deliberately for a child like Joshua, but he will forgive Erik almost anything. Erik has always been able to operate in Charles' blind spot, because that's exactly what Erik is.

You never learn, Charles thinks to himself, and when Azazel appears and disappears, the scent of sulfur once again flooding his senses, he braces himself for the influx of children, what will be needed to calm them. Oh Charles, why do you never learn.


End file.
